


You should see me in a crown

by Selena



Category: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF, 18th Century CE RPF
Genre: Childhood Friends, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Lost Love, Male-Female Friendship, Misses Clause Challenge, Negotiations, POV Female Character, Partitions of Poland, Politics, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Tide of History Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27762013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selena/pseuds/Selena
Summary: 1770: Politics is the most dangerous of games, and Catherine II. of Russia a top player. When she gets contacted by a man who knows her longer and better than most, the stakes couldn't be higher: war or peace between four European powers - and the survival or destruction of a country....
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine II of Russia/Stanisław August Poniatowski, Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine II. of Russia & Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine II. of Russia & Heinrich von Preußen | Henry of Prussia
Comments: 12
Kudos: 13
Collections: Focus on Female Characters, Hold Your Fire No Canon Required, Yuletide 2020





	You should see me in a crown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nabielka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/gifts).



> **Disclaimer** : It might not need saying, but just in case: character views aren't the author's views; the first partition of Poland was a terrible act which set a fatal precedent. 
> 
> **Thanks to** : My kind beta reader Kathyh, braving 18th century European politics with me. 
> 
> **Timeline** : 1770 and early 1771. 
> 
> **Warnings** : (historical) sexual molestation of a minor referenced, but not "on page".

She rises at six in the morning, every day, no matter how late she goes to bed the night before, and rekindles the fireplace herself before the first servant enters. It pleases her to do this with her own hands; not least because the movement and the necessity of avoiding the sparks disperse any lingering drowsiness. She needs her head clear for the business of the day, after all. There is so much of it; the ongoing war with the Turks, the way the anti-Russian party in Sweden has regained the upper hand in the Swedish Parliament, the Austrians, who regard the possibility Russia might claim some Turkish territory directly on their borders with great distrust, and who are no longer quite so predictable, now that they have two rulers, not one. Prussia, which sends subsidies for the Turkish War but has been making overtures to its old arch enemy Austria just last year, when the young Emperor met the King of Prussia, whom it is rumoured he secretly admires. She, of all people, knows what it means if a young ruler who admires the King of Prussia gains power, even though in the Austrian case the old Empress is thankfully still alive. And there is Poland. Always and forever, Poland.

On this particular day, she receives a letter that adds yet another card to the hand which fate has dealt her, and which she is determined to play better than anyone else. It is a note from Prince Golizyn, her new envoy to the Netherlands, who has stopped on the way to the Hague in Berlin. And what he tells her is this: he has been approached by Prince Heinrich, the King of Prussia's brother. It seems the King has given Prince Heinrich permission to visit their sister, the Queen of Sweden, this very summer, in order to "encourage her peaceful intentions towards Russia". Much as this mission pleases the Prince, Golizyn writes, he would be even happier if, once he's in Stockholm, the Czarina would invite him to St. Petersburg in order to allow him to express his admiration to her in person. Should she agree, the letter to his brother the King should be written only after Heinrich's arrival in Sweden, not before. The King might not be happy, but he would allow it if the Czarina insisted.

She can't help the smile curving her lips. What are you up to? she wonders. Not a social invitation, to begin with. Although she's perfectly willing to believe he longs to travel, and to prolong his travelling as far as it is possible. The members of the Prussian Royal family are not allowed to leave the country without the King's explicit permission. Especially not this one, the only Prince to share King Friedrich's military gifts, the only one to have won himself such fame in the Seven-Years-War that he's been considered for a crown himself. No, this Prince has been kept tightly bound to Brandenburg soil by his older brother the King once that war was over, and has gone from Friedrich's second in command during the war to having no power at all in peacetime. That journey to Sweden will be the first time he's been given responsibility again. Could it be that he wants to defect, to seek his fortunes in Russia? He'd be far from the first German to do so. And she could certainly use a general of his calibre, who would not have any influential Russian family to back him up and to appease, who'd be entirely dependent on her favour.

There is, of course, another possibility: that this is trickery on the King of Prussia's part, a ruse to deceive her, to make her trust his brother once the Prince gets here in a way she wouldn't another envoy, including the current Prussian ambassador, whom she has under strict surveillance despite the fact her minister Panin is already bribing him to let her read all the correspondence between him and King Friedrich. She and Friedrich are allies, yes, but of necessity, and not given to trusting each other an inch. And for all that there are well known tensions between him and his younger brother, the fact of the matter remains that Heinrich has remained at his side throughout the Seven Years War, even when it appeared that Prussia was to be crushed, through times when changing sides would have been far easier and more rewarding.

She has studied both their tactics in the war. Much as they differed, deceiving an enemy about what they were actually intending was their stock-in-trade then.

There is yet another factor, and because she is a ruler, she considers this one least: the message could just mean what it says. He wants an invitation so they can meet again. They had known each other such a long time ago, in a different world, when she'd born another name, and had been - what were they to each other?

No matter. Whatever the truth, she'll find it out, because this is too good an opportunity to pass up, and as for the risk of deception, well, she is more than equal to meeting anything the brothers might have thought of with trickery of her own. Besides. She actually would like to see him again, thinks Catherine, Czarina of all the Russias, and allows herself, only for a moment, to think of a time when she'd been Sophie, and he might just have been one of the few people who cared whether she lived or died.

* * *

She's eight years old when she first meets him, and he is eleven. They're both children of very ambitious mothers, though neither of them is anywhere near being their mother's focus of attention, which is directed at other siblings instead. For Sophie, the importance of the visit has been made clear. She is a princess, but barely; her father's principality is tiny, and he does not even rule it by himself, but in conjunction with a brother. Which means that being a general to the Prussian King is his more important occupation. Her mother uses this as an excuse to visit Berlin as often as she can, being bored to tears in tiny Stettin or Zerbst. This time, though, she's been granted an audience with the Prussian Queen, and has explicitly been told to bring her oldest daughter along, so that the youngest children of the Queen will have someone to play with.

"See that you endear yourself," her mother says. "Sadly, the Crown Prince is already married, but there are three more princes available. Now I do hope we'll get someone better than a younger son, but it certainly would be a good match to fall back on, and besides, there are your brothers to think of. She has two unmarried daughters left as well."

"Will the King be there?" Sophie asks. She's been presented to the Prussian King already, in Hamburg. He did not look like a King at all, but like a fat soldier in a shabby blue coat, and when she asked why he did not wear a better one, she ended up being sent to bed without her supper.

"Thank God, no," her mother says, who unlike Sophie is permitted to express disdain of King Friedrich Wilhelm. "We'll be presented at Charlottenburg, which is one of the residences the Queen favours. He never goes there."  
Charlottenburg turns out to be beautiful, and the reception proceeds smoothly, with Sophie making her curtsey to the Queen without a flaw despite her shoulders aching today. The princesses Ulrike and Amalie are both much older than she is, seventeen and fourteen respectively, and while being polite look not very enthused when being told to play with the princess of Anhalt-Zerbst. Of the princes, two are present: Ferdinand, who is one year younger than her and hides behind his brother, which tells her all there is to know about Ferdinand, and Heinrich, who is three years older but not much taller than she is, which means he's small. He doesn't look handsome, either; a bit too thin for that, and his eyes aren't of the intense blue her own eyes are prized for, but of a washed-up grey.

"We don't have any dolls here," the Princess Amalie says. "What card games do you know?"

"I don't play with dolls anymore, either," Sophie returns indignantly, though it has been only a year since they told her she was too old for dolls now. "But card games are boring. How about hide and seek?"

"We'd be at an advantage then," Heinrich says while his sisters roll their eyes. "Since you've never been here before. So it wouldn't be fair."

"Unfair games are the most fun to win", Sophie retorts. "But if you want to make it fairer, you could team up with me."

He regards her with some curiosity now . "Very well," he says. His brother Ferdinand starts protesting that he wants to be with Heinrich, too, and Heinrich hugs him reassuringly, saying something about "Amalie will look after you" and "if you manage to find me, I'll give you my roasted almonds as a prize".

Sophie isn't close to either of her brothers, not least because her mother blatantly prefers them, but also because she's smarter than both but has been told she must not outshine them which makes their company grating. This kind of sibling consideration is alien to her. It, and Heinrich's concern about fairness, makes her wonder whether it was a mistake to pick him as her ally and not attempt to win over the sisters, because he might not even try very hard. But then he looks at his sisters and says: "If you don't find us within an hour, you're the ones who'll go with the King to hear the new preacher. If you don't find us within two, you are buying a new book for me. But if you do find us in less than an hour, I promise I'll write the letters to the Firstborns and Lolotte for all of us for the entire next four months!"

The boredom has vanished completely from his sisters' faces. Amalie nods downright eagerly, and Heinrich grabs Sophie's hand. "Better run", he murmurs. "They really don't like writing to our older siblings!"

Two stairs and one gallery later, as they pause for breath, Sophie stares at him. "But why would you do that?" she asks. "Why make it more difficult for us?"

"Because you're right," he replies. "Unfair games are the most fun to beat."

She feels a tiny bubble of delight rising in her. This could actually be enjoyable, instead of being an exercise in duty so her mother can't blame her for not having made an effort with the Prussian royal family.

"As long as we win", she says.

"I hate losing, so we will", Heinrich returns. "How are you at climbing?"

* * *

The letter sits there, written in Catherine's own hand, not by a secretary; he can tell the difference by now. Friedrich, wearing the glasses which are one of his best kept secrets as they don't fit the image of the heroic warrior king he needs to keep up, stares at it, has been staring for a while now, but the elegant writing refuses to change.

_"His royal highness Prince Heinrich has travelled to his sister in Stockholm. It is only a day from Stockholm to Reval, and another one from Reval to Kronstadt. This town is only two miles away from Peterhof, where I usually spend my summers. In such proximity to a prince close to your majesty, I cannot resist the fervent wish to renew our acquaintance. I have no other motive for this suggestion than my great admiration and my friendship for you and all who are close to you."_

What are you up to? Friedrich thinks, and means Catherine and his brother both. The situation in Europe is a powder keg right now, and Heinrich knows this better than anyone. He is supposed to talk their sister out of overthrowing her own realm's constitution for that very reason. This isn't the time for experiments. More to the point, if sister Ulrike uses French money to disempower the Swedish parliament and make Sweden an absolute monarchy again, as she has been threatening to do for a while, then Sweden's old enemy Russia will go to war, and due to the treaty Prussia has with Russia, he himself will be obliged to invade Swedish Pomerania to, as the treaty explicitly says, "protect the Swedish constitution".

It's not that he is opposed to invading other countries in his old age. But he'll be damned if he does so on behalf of the Zerbst girl who only sits on the Russian throne because he himself arranged her marriage. If he hadn't made that mistake, Russia would still be ruled by the most powerful admirer Friedrich ever had, and Russia would concern itself only with attacks on Denmark for the old Holstein lands instead of increasingly throwing its weight around and behaving like the indispensable monster it unfortunately is to him. For all that the Seven Years War has left Friedrich with the laurels of having fought a war with four European powers at the same time and not having lost a single inch of territory, the truth, a truth he and Heinrich are painfully familiar with, is that they would have lost if the old Czarina Elizabeth hadn't died. Elizabeth's nephew and successor Peter, Catherine's late, very late husband, had only ruled for six months before Catherine had overthrown him, but those six months had made all the difference, as Peter had left the alliance against Friedrich at once, had returned all of Russia's conquests and put his troops at Friedrich's disposal. It changed certain doom into a chance for victory. It has also left Friedrich with the firm conviction that fighting Russia again was never going to be an option.  


Not that Catherine is supposed to be aware of this. Catherine is supposed to believe Russia needs the alliance with Prussia far more than they need her, and not just because he's paying her subsidies for her war against the Turks, his own alliance with the Sultan notwithstanding. True, Sweden's power has been declining in this century, but the Russians won't have forgotten how close a Swedish King had come to destroying Peter the Great. Of course, back then Sweden had been a proper monarchy, not one ruled by the nobles and their parties in parliament who chose their kings instead. No wonder his sister Ulrike has been fighting against this state of affairs almost since the day she's arrived to marry the Crown Prince of Sweden, and no wonder Catherine has made "protecting the Swedish constitution" a treaty clause, for who wouldn't rather have squabbling nobles whom you can bribe as your neighbours instead of a monarch who could take it into her head to want Finland back and descend on Russian soil next?

"Ulrike never had enough money to do what she wanted, but now she does," Heinrich had said to him last winter, and Friedrich had cursed, because there is no way this could end well. If Ulrike tries a coup and fails, she and her husband could get executed, for the Swedes are rather invested in their squabbling parliament and constitutional rights, one hears. If Ulrike stages a coup and succeeds, he'll be obliged to go to war against her, and it might all end up with Russia swallowing Sweden whole.

"Letters aren't enough. But if you let me explain it to her in person, it might make all the difference", Heinrich had pleaded. Not a word about any side trips to Russia.

Of course Heinrich has hated his enforced idleness these last seven years. He'd been only thirty-seven when the war had ended, a man in the prime of his life and on top of his abilities, unlike Friedrich, who is fourteen years older, crippled by gout, and has felt ancient ever since. But Prussia isn't Sweden. There can be only one King. In Prussia, you either have all the power, or you have none, that's what Friedrich had learned when powerless himself, and he has lived according to this lesson ever since. He has come to rely on Heinrich in war times, true, but they had been fighting for survival then. Peacetime is different, and so he'd frozen his brother out again. Until this year. Using Heinrich in peace time to prevent another war has meant fighting against this oldest of lessons. But the fact of the matter is this: Heinrich actually has the abilities, the knowledge, and the dedication. It's what makes this particular brother both a curse and a joy, a help and a danger: he's Friedrich's infuriating younger self, and so Friedrich should have known Heinrich would take the inch he'd been given, and not just go a mile but start a continental crossing.

Well, then. Swedish-Russian relations aren't the only incendiary topic one could, in theory, raise with the Czarina Catherine. There are the Turks, and Friedrich's current position of being, on paper, an ally to both parties in the Turkish-Russian war. There is the fact that his spies claim the Austrians have their own secret treaty with the Turks, ancient enmity notwithstanding. And there's that other country which elects its kings but is really ruled by squabbling nobles in their parliament, except right now, not even that is true, because there's been bloody anarchy these last few years. And this one is [right between two parts of Prussia](https://www.zum.de/whkmla/histatlas/germany/prussia17401763.gif).

Poland. There's always Poland.

Friedrich decides to write a letter of his own. Once Heinrich is back, he'll pay for having forced Friedrich's hand like this, but only a fool would waste an opportunity, and Friedrich has been accused of many things, but never of being a fool.

The ink isn't dry yet before it occurs to him that Heinrich might not come back at all. He might decide to stay with the Zerbst girl turned almighty Mother Russia instead. She's already lured several of the scientists and artists Friedrich has been favouring to her court, she's even become Voltaire's other crowned correspondent, thus making him less unique in this regard, and she certainly has no scruples stealing men who aren't hers.

 _What are you up to_ , he thinks again, and it infuriates him that he does not know the answer.

* * *

She's twelve, near thirteen, when Heinrich's favourite brother Wilhelm marries, in the January of 1742. The princess of Zerbst and her mother are invited to the wedding festivities, which spread through the entire month. Berlin under its new King Friedrich II. is much changed. There is a war going on, true, because he has invaded Silesia, but so far, he's won and keeps winning, and so everyone is in an exuberant patriotic mood. Then there's the fact that the bride and groom are both young, both nineteen and soon to be twenty, and this all makes for high spirits and everyone predicting a wonderful future. Sophie's uncle Georg Ludwig, who has come along for the festivities, sighs and asks whether she'll be his lady for the opening ball.

"I would, but I already promised Prince Heinrich," Sophie replies smoothly . She's not sure how she feels about the fact that her uncle has actually declared his love for her, sworn her to secrecy and keeps kissing and fondling her whenever he can get her alone. On the one hand, people have been telling her that she isn't pretty, ugly, even, all through her childhood, so the fact that now that her body is transforming, men start to notice her, and one who really should not see her as anything but his niece can't keep away is balm to that ongoing wound. On the other hand, she wishes he wouldn't; she'd liked her uncle before this turn of events, the only relation to not treat her brothers as so much better than herself, but she doesn't like all the kissing, and his hands are sweaty.

"I really should talk to your mother," her uncle mutters. "He'll never amount to anything. Just a third son, and not worthy of you."

"But Uncle, you yourself are a youngest son," Sophie returns, and slips away to find Heinrich and inform him he's supposed to ask her to dance at the opening ball.

In a few days, he will be sixteen. He's still not much taller than she is, but his voice has already darkened to an agreeable baritone, he's started to shave, and he's rapidly leaving boyishness behind. But he is still good at understanding what she doesn't say, and so he doesn't just ask her for one dance, or two. He asks her for every [minuet](https://youtu.be/epmG43H9D98) and every [contredanse](https://youtu.be/ib6h1sSnYZ0) at every ball during the wedding festivities. Her uncle is seething but can't do anything. Her mother is delighted. And Sophie can thoroughly enjoy herself, for not only is Heinrich a good dancer, but there's no need to impress him. She can just be herself.

"If the war lasts much longer, I might be able to join," he tells her while they glide through the figures their respective dance masters have taught them. "The King has promised."

It's interesting that he refers to his oldest brother always by title, never by name. This was true even before Friedrich ascended to the throne, only then it had been "the Crown Prince". Well, they are fourteen years apart; presumably they haven't seen much of each other.

"Well, Prussia had promised to respect the Pragmatic Sanction, too, and look where you are," she teases, referring to the fact that his brother invading Silesia happened as a direct consequence of the Emperor dying last autumn, and most of Europe, starting with Friedrich, promptly ignoring the oaths they previously swore to accept the Emperor's daughter's right of inheritance. "If you still like to fight against the odds, I have to tell you that this time, the odds are distinctly in your favor."

"For now," he returns. "But the King is really good at annoying his allies. Sooner or later he'll be glad of all the support he can get, you'll see."

"Or you could admit you just like winning," Sophie laughs. "I know I do."

When they're thoroughly exhausted and need to catch their breath, he's about to lead her back to the table where her mother is busy chatting with the Queen while her uncle glowers when Sophie says impulsively: "Can't we go outside for a while?"

"It's January. You'll catch your death," he says, because he's practical like that. But he hasn't missed her look, and so he adds that they could go to the kitchens and try to cajole some of the champagne that's not supposed to be served until an hour from now out of the people there.

It doesn't escape her that this means that strictly speaking, they won't be alone, and yet still able to talk confidentially on the way. Young as she is, there is now serious talk about her marriage possibilities, no longer just in the realm of speculation. If Heinrich were to withdraw with her to a room, he'd compromise her honor; they are no longer children. This is why her uncle has sworn her to secrecy.

"Does your mother have a new match for you?" Heinrich asks her as they circle around the other still dancing guests in search of the servants' exit.

It's as good a guess as any for what's bothering her. And suddenly, she decides to tell him the truth. They might be older now, but he is still her friend. "There is some talk about one of my Holstein cousins. The one who was to be heir of Sweden and now will be heir of Russia instead. That would be the greatest chance, of course, and believe me, I want it. But if it falls through - well, I think she might consider making me her sister-in-law then."

Because this is what she has started to suspect: that her mother knows what her uncle is doing, knows and doesn't say anything. Because her mother might consider Sophie her least favourite child, but she is a sharp observer, and she has to wonder why Uncle Georg Ludwig keeps visiting so often in the last year instead of trying to win himself glory in the Silesian War, as all the young men of the Prussian nobility do.

Heinrich thinks about this. He does not look disgusted, as she half feared he might. Of course, there are different rules for nobility: just look at the Habsburgs. And Heinrich's own parents are first cousins. It is possible to marry a niece, if you are powerful enough and if the King allows it. Protestants like them don't even need an expensive papal dispensation.

The other possibility is that despite what her uncle says, marriage is not his intention. And that her mother is fine with this, too, if she can't get Sophie married to the Russian Czarina's nephew.

"If it comes to that.... I suppose we could marry instead," Heinrich says pensively, which is the least passionate proposal imaginable, and yet she feels like hugging him right now. Instead, they duck to avoid a tray with a baked and stuffed goose which is carried by two servants.

"It would be better than marrying my uncle," Sophie replies honestly. "But I don't want to be a third prince's wife. I want to be a Queen, at least."

"Well, I don't want to marry at all," Heinrich says, a bit waspishly, "but we can't all get what we want, Sophie."

She grimaces at him. "You mean to say you are not mad of love for me? My beauty does not make you sleepless in the night? Thank you, kind sir." Then she adds, more seriously: "Truly, though. I don't want my mother's life, always scraping at the table of my betters. And this is what I would get if I were to marry you, or any other prince who'll never have a realm. But if I were to marry for friendship and nothing else...."

"That's not why anyone marries," he agrees and grimaces back at her. Then he smiles. "I'll miss you, though. Whomever you marry. And I mean it. If your mother seriously considers your uncle, you can always say I proposed first. She'll then assume that means the King will never grant permission for such a marriage, since she'll believe I proposed with his approval, and whoever ends up as your husband, it won't be your mother's brother."

The relief Sophie feels is like a great wave, and only then does she realize she truly doesn't want her uncle's attentions, not in whatever form, no matter how much they have made her feel she'd become pretty at last. She takes Heinrich's hand and squeezes it. He might not be a good prospect as a husband, but he is her friend, and her favourite person to plot with.

* * *

In the end, it is October when Heinrich arrives from Sweden, and she has returned from her summer residence to Petersburg. "I've heard he's nothing much," Grigory Orlov observes while they are waiting for Heinrich's arrival in the Winter Palace. "And a deviant to boot, a plaything of his favourites."

Leave it to Grigory Grigoryevich to be painfully obvious. Still, she can't help finding it endearing he's yet capable of jealousy, given he's been her lover for almost a decade now. "We have had enough of German princes at this court," he adds, and her indulgent amusement vanishes rapidly. If this isn't an allusion to her late husband and his death at the hands of Grigory's brother, it damn well sounds like one. The Orlovs have been instrumental in her rise to the throne, but they are not the rulers here, nor does she still regard herself as indebted to them, not after years and years of favors, money and positions. Time to remind Grigory there is only one mistress at this court, and no master.

"I was born a German prince," she retorts, unsmilingly. "And the day this court has had enough of me shall be three days after they bury you, so go and salute Prince Heinrich as he enters, Grigory Grigoryevich. I command it."

He obeys with an angry and sullen look, but he obeys. The thunder of canons announces Heinrich's arrival, as she has ordered; a welcome not for a visiting envoy, but a King. She has never been cheap in her flattery; in the almost two decades between her arrival in Russia and her rise to the throne, it has often saved her life. When the Prussian visitors are announced by her herald in impeccable French, the language of the court here just as it is everywhere else in Europe, she can see that the small group making its way to her through the grand audience hall wears Russian uniforms, a courteous gesture to honor one's host which she appreciates, for it is true: the memory of her late husband Peter and his insistence on wearing Prussian uniforms should not be evoked.

Then he's there: her friend of yesteryear, whom she hasn't seen since she was fourteen and he was seventeen. He's never been handsome, but the smallpox has taken what youthful charm had been on his adolescent face and left scars, as they had on her dead husband's face, which is not a reminder she cares for. There is also a war wound near his eyes. And he's still not taller than she is. But she recognizes his intent gaze as he follows etiquette and greets Catherine, Empress of all the Russias, giving her all her titles. in the voice which has always been his best physical attribute, as perfectly modulated as any actors. There's also just the slightest hint of a smile as he offers greetings from her ally his brother, and from the rooftop of Charlottenburg Palace. This makes everyone else look confused, but she laughs.

"Prince Heinrich and I used to climb on those rooftops," she tells the court. "You can see much of Berlin, and no one will ever find you."

At the gala dinner, he sits next to her. "Well played," she says, testing him. "But even good memories will carry you only so far and not further. Who is that extremely good looking man in your entourage?"

He does not pretend to misunderstand her. "Your Majesty must be referring to Major Kaphengst, my adjutant," he replies, meeting her gaze. "He is indeed a beautiful sight, but what I value even more in him is his loyalty. He would not desert me any more than I would abandon him."

Which tells her not just that all the gossip about his preferences are true, but that however he plans to win her to whatever his aims are, it won't be by handing over his lover. She inclines her hand in respect.  
"You are fortunate, then," she says. "In my experience, love may be easier to find than loyalty. Happy the prince who can claim both."

"Claim or give, Sophie?" he asks, and the old name combined with the question suddenly takes her out of the bantering mood. Since her mother left Russia, there has been precisely one person whom she has allowed to call her Sophie. Not her husband, not Grigory Orlov, either; Stanislaw Poniatowski, who has loved her recklessly and completely, and has ended up betraying her in the most unexpected way possible: by being more, not less loyal than she had assumed him to be, by taking a task he was only meant to fulfill as a tool and give his heart and soul to it. She does not want to think of Stas now.

"I have not been Sophie for a long time. Nor will I ever be Sophie again," she says curtly, in a tone which would have sent her courtiers shivering. Heinrich's expression doesn't change.

"None of us can go back, and it is the Czarina Catherine I came to see," he replies . "But allow me to hope my old friend Sophie has found happiness as well. I missed her when she was gone, and I never had that many true friends to miss."

"Sophie wanted to become a Queen at the very least, and she became more," Catherine says lightly. "That's all there is to it." She claps her hands, and orders the musicians to play a contredanse. The ball wasn't supposed to begin until later, but she is obeyed instantly. Heinrich rises.

"With your majesty's permission," he says, and holds out his hand to her.

They are both in their early forties by now; she's gained weight, and for all that he hasn't, he's aged faster than her in other ways. She's seen it in many of the soldiers she's known. The hand she clasps could be that of a man a decade older than he is, and there is brittleness to the bone. Still, when she takes it, it is for a moment as if she was young once more, on the verge of her journey, and with the first test ahead: his brother.

"Let's dance."

* * *

Sophie is fourteen years old when she visits Berlin for the last time. It is carnival, for the carnival in Berlin begins in December and lasts till February, and thus the entirety of January is packed with festivities. Festivities she's not supposed to participate in, for this time, her mother can't wait to leave again. They're only here as a first stop on a greater journey, the journey to Russia. The Czarina Elizabeth has agreed to consider Sophie as a candidate for marriage to her nephew Peter, but only if Sophie presents herself in person. There's the danger that this will end in disaster, of course, that Sophie will be sent back like slippers which don't fit, but on the other hand, the reward for this particular risk could not be greater: a daughter who one day will be Empress Consort of Russia. So her mother has agreed to the condition at once, and her father has been persuaded to. Given that this entire match would not have happened if the King of Prussia had not thrown his entire support behind it, strongly discouraging the Czarina's first choice of a Saxon princess, they had to stop here first. But nothing more than Sophie's parents paying homage to their sovereign had been planned. Instead, Friedrich explicitly orders Sophie's presence at the _Redoute_ , the great ball in the new Berlin opera house which is the highlight of the carnival season. Her mother's protests that there is no suitable dress to wear - because all of Sophie's good wardrobe has been sent ahead already - is swept aside, and Friedrich actually sends a dress belonging to one of his sisters and a tailor to alter it for Sophie. Her mother concedes.

"Don't dance with Prince Heinrich so often again," she warns Sophie. "You're now betrothed, or as good as. We don't want the Grand Duke and the Czarina to hear any nasty tales."

Given that Sophie still suspects her mother has been entirely aware of what Uncle Georg Ludwig had been doing, she doesn't see this sudden care for her reputation as maternal concern, but it probably does make sense; Sophie would hate to be sent back to Zerbst like damaged goods. Maybe one dance, though; it would be a chance to say goodbye.

But it's not Heinrich who asks her to join him at the Redoute, it's one of the Württemberg princes, and he leads her not to just any table, but the one where the King has been seated, casually informing her she will be Friedrich's dinner partner. Her parents, on the other hand, have been placed at a different table, far, far away.

Now Sophie has a natural confidence to draw on. But this is not a King like his father; this is the King who has been praised by everyone around her as the greatest commander of Europe, the worthy successor to such military geniuses as the immortal Prince Eugene, perhaps even the next Sun King. Also, it's been noted by now that he doesn't like women, his sisters and a very few other members of the fair sex excepted. His Queen, for example, won't be at the ball. Friedrich goes out of his way to avoid her . Not to mention that he's almost as famous by now for his sharp tongue as he is for his battle-winning strategies. All of which means that Sophie gets more nervous with every step she takes.

The King rises for her. He's not a tall man, though a bit taller than Heinrich, and his eyes are of the same dark blue as her own. He smiles at her as she sinks into her curtsey, and kisses her hand as she rises.

"I see Berlin has been visited by young Hebe," he says, which is the kind of gallantry Sophie has not expected, not from him. For a moment, she feels tongue-tied and clumsy, but then her education pays off. Hebe is the daughter of Zeus, goddess of youth, wife to Heracles after his deification, and one of the few goddesses to whom no scandalous or tragic myth is tied; she's therefore an eminently fitting comparison for a young bride. She returns the compliment by calling him Apollo and Mars, and starts to believe she can get through this evening without embarrassing herself.

He chats with her about her likes and dislikes in opera, in books, in dances, and after a while she is relaxed enough to risk something when he asks her about what she plans on learning first when she arrives in Russia. The true reply is the Russian language, because while her mother has told her everyone speaks French there, Sophie has no intention of relying on this. But what she tells Friedrich is something else. "Riding," she says. "My parents would not let me. But if I marry the Grand Duke, I shall be Empress one day, and there are different rules for Empresses. Didn't the Queen of Hungary ride on her coronation day?"

The Queen of Hungary is Maria Theresia, Friedrich's arch enemy, whom rumor has it he will fight again, perhaps even this year. She is the late Emperor's daughter but not an Empress herself, not according to Friedrich. And she did ride on her coronation day. It was part of the ceremony, and Sophie has heard all the descriptions, of the Austrian riding with a sword in her hand, no less, just as a King would have. It has excited her. She truly does want to ride, but she also wants to see what King Friedrich will do when just the slightest bit provoked.

"Do you consider the Queen of Hungary an example to follow?" he asks, still smiling. But his eyes don't smile. They regard her with a cool, searching look.

"No, Sire," she says hastily. But then she thinks: she won't be this man's subject for much longer. And so she adds: "After all, you did defeat her. So she can never be an example to me."

There is a slight pause, as the chatter around them drops into a silence. Which is how she finally finds out where Heinrich has been seated: not on the King's table, but not as far away as her parents' table, either. At the next table, in fact, looking at her and his brother, his mouth slightly open. Sophie feels drops of sweat running down her back and sits very straight. But she does not take it back.

Then the King laughs, sounding genuinely amused. "The Grand Duke will have his hands full, that's for sure," he says, and everyone else joins in his approving laughter. Almost everyone. Heinrich does not. Instead, he takes the glass standing in front of him and raises it in Sophie's direction, silently saluting her. So it seems he noticed that she wasn't joking.

 _I'll best you once_ , Sophie thinks, looking at King Friedrich benevolently smiling at her and telling his other guests what a charming young woman the princess of Anhalt-Zerbst ist. _Somehow, somewhere. You'll see._

* * *

She's given Heinrich permission to visit her daily and to share her meals if he wants to, and so they see each other not just during receptions or parties. The negotiations regarding his sister and Sweden take place during an early breakfast, and are relatively uncomplicated. He argues that Ulrike in truth cares neither for the French nor the Russian party in parliament, but mainly about no longer being subjected to the indignity of having to beg her nobles for money, that this was the sole reason why she favored the French party leaders, who came equipped with French money.

"Money she wants to use to overthrow the constitution," Catherine says slowly, daring him to deny it.

"It's an old dream, but an impractical one," Heinrich returns. "She knows this. She doesn't want war, and she knows war would come, leaving her no time to enjoy her husband's rule as an unrestrained King even if she were to succeed and instead bring a struggle with many opponents Sweden can't win. My sister is no fool. She really wants the money for her dignity more than anything else. But the way the Russian party has been behaving in parliament has not led her to believe she'd have to expect anything from them. I think if your majesty were to hint to your Swedish friends that heightening the Queen's budget would result in peace and quiet for everyone, everyone would be happy."

They fence a little longer about the particularities, but this is essentially it. She doesn't want war with Sweden, either, after all.

The matter of Turkey and her hard won gains in the war with the Turks, on the other hand, are a different matter entirely. This remains a topic as the winter approaches. He has never seen the sea frozen, and recalling how the sight struck her when she first saw it, she brings him to the Petersburg bay where the Fishermen sit all day, having carved holes in the ice to fish but bringing not just chairs but firewood with them to warm themselves. The uneven surface with its frozen waves amazes him as she'd known it would.

"Wallachia and Moldavia are mine by right of conquest," she says. "If the Turks are willing to accept this, why should it be anyone else's business? Including, to point out the obvious, Prussia's. Yes, your brother gave me some subsidies. But not a single Prussian died fighting the Turks, and he's been making eyes at them throughout because he still hopes to use them against the Austrians one day."

"The Austrians will never accept Russian dominion over Wallachia and Moldavia," Heinrich returns. "You don't have to trust me on this, though you could. Your own spies, if they're of any use, should tell you that this is one of the matters Maria Theresia and her son definitely agree on, and there are not too many of those. I've talked to the young Emperor when he met my brother at Neisse, and believe me, he'd be willing to go to war for this."

"Following his hero's example, I suppose?" she says archly, but in truth, she knows he's not lying. Moldavia and Wallachia are bordering on Maria Theresia's realms, and young Joseph has already ordered troops to those borders for manoeuvres. "Again," she continues, "I am winning this war. Even if the Sultan should choose to drag it out a few months longer. Why should I care what the people think who could not manage to beat you, three times in a row?"

Heinrich sits down on a tree trunk someone dragged across the ice and then abandoned. "Because they managed to beat everyone else, perhaps. But mostly because you do not need Wallachia and Moldavia, but you do need peace."

She sits down beside him. "Everyone needs peace. But on their own conditions, and with profit. And I do not need it as urgently as the Turks. For that matter, have the Austrians even finished paying off their debts from the last war?"

"Have you?" he asks. This stuns her. She has surrounded him with luxury since his arrival, with an artificial volcano only the latest creation designed to impress. If there is one impression Russia is not supposed to give, it's of a country impoverished in any way.

Heinrich turns his scarred face towards her. "I know war. I know the cost of war. And I know what it means to have several fronts. You have the Turks on the run, yes, and more peasants than any other country in Europe, but even common soldiers need training, and officers don't grow on trees, they need years of education. You're rapidly running out of those who survived the last war. There has already been a rebellion, even if you don't care to call it that. Part of your troops are stuck in Poland and can't be sent against the Turks, and they certainly would not be available against the Austrians. And all your plans for a national school system, they're wonderful, they would change Russia forever. But the cost of implementing them...."

"You are not convincing me to give up rich and fruitful territories I could squeeze more money from," Catherine says harshly. "As I recall, your last war was mostly financed by Prussia first invading Saxony and then bleeding it dry."

She can see he holds his breath, because it is so cold every bit is immediately visible, white clouds forming from their mouths as soon as they speak. Then he exhales.

"What if I told you you could have land without war?"

* * *

She has been Catherine for a while now, Jekaterina Alexejewna, and is twenty five, soon to be twenty six, when she first meets Stanislaw Poniatowski. He is the twenty two year old protegé of the British envoy, offspring of one of Poland's leading aristocratic families, better educated than any other man she's met at the Russian court, beautiful and charming. She is still recovering from having given birth to her first child, the boy who was promptly taken away from her, and from the realisation that the first lover she dared to take after seven years of misery with Peter has abandoned her as well. She has started to become cynical about love; there are, of course, other men who'd dare to risk an affair with the Grand Duke's wife in hope of money , or influence, or because they think they can blackmail her with the result later. But then there's Stas, who actually, truly, deeply, worships the ground she treads on. Ridiculous Stas, who climbs into the wrong window once when trying to be discreet . Brave Stas, who is willing to offer his life for hers. Tender Stas, who when she's flung out of a sled into the snow, cradles her and never lets her go. Poetic Stas, who writes her letters that could come from those novels they both love to read, but never are less than original.

"Catherine," he murmurs when she tells him to call her by her name, and she finds herself replying: "No, Sophie. Call me Sophie."

Even then, though, even then she can't entirely stop the part of her which calculates, and what she calculates is this: the Poles elect their Kings. In the last centuries, they have been mostly choosing kings from foreign houses, as with the current Saxons on the Polish throne. They do this for two main reasons: a foreigner will only spend some of the time in Poland, and will need Polish nobles to tell him how to govern, ideally doing it for him, and: a foreigner comes with foreign soldiers, able to defend Poland and allowing it not to be entirely dependent on one of those bigger realms surrounding it: Russia, Austria - or Prussia.

But. But if a Pole, from a Polish family, were to be elected King, he would not have this. He would, instead, be entirely reliant on one of those powers , would have to follow their lead in every way.

It is an idle speculation. She is the wife of a future Czar who does not like her, who might want to do what his grandfather Peter the Great had done and send her to a nunnery as soon as he is on the throne, dissolve their marriage in order to marry anew. Even if he does not, there's no guarantee he will listen to her advice when it comes to governing his country. Rather the contrary. So it is a fruitless exercise in strategic thinking, nothing else, and she pushes it away to be in love, madly in love. It only rarely reappears until Stas has to leave.

She falls out of love gradually, without there being one particular point when she can say: this is it, here I stopped loving him. It is time and distance at work for the most part, but also the increasing awareness that if she does not want to end up in a nunnery or shoved aside, she will have to do something about it. When next she falls in love, it is with an officer who has excellent connections throughout the army, Grigory Orlov. She still keeps up her correspondence with Stanislaw, though. And when she's supreme ruler of Russia, her husband dead and all of Europe pointing at her while also seeking her favour, she gets a letter where he proposes to her.

  
_How absurd_ , Catherine thinks, and then: _But I will make him Poland's King_.

* * *

  
The orthodox church celebrates Epiphany not on January 6th but along with Christmas on December 25th. It is, therefore, a rare day without a feast, with everyone still nursing their headaches from the various New Year's celebrations, when Catherine sits in one of her smaller salons with Heinrich and a few other selected guests, and with the latest reports that have reached her still in mind reaches a decision.

"I hear the Austrians have taken two Starostwos in Poland and have declared them ancient Hungarian territory," she says casually, using the Polish designation for their administrative units. "Down to putting up their flag. Supposedly, there isn't even much objection from the Poles."

"Never you mind those impotent boasters, Your Majesty," Grigory Orlov declares. "As for the Poles, they're all ungrateful wretches, their King included. They should just be grateful for your support, when they can do nothing but endlessly argue and feud, and need our troops to restore even a bit of order, but are they? Are they, hell. Of course they'd conspire with the goddamn Austrian papists. They're all Pope worshippers, after all. Now what you need there is a Russian King. I'd set them straight, you know I would."

"They're not all Pope worshippers, they're all mad," Count Chernitchev comments. "And the best argument against parliaments that there ever was. Just imagine, a single vote is enough to veto any given decision, no matter who else votes for it."

"Now, now, Count," Panin intervenes "Our Czarina is the protector of the Polish Constitution. If it were to change, it wouldn't be a good thing for Russia. They might not need us anymore, instead of continuing with their endless internal feuding."

"That's why that traitor Poniatowski tried to change it," Grigory says. "I told you, Your Majesty, if you'd only have made a loyal Russian King..."

Catherine ignored him. "I'm told your brother did the same thing as the Austrians," she says to Heinrich, who'd been suspiciously quiet ever since she spoke, eyes on her . _He knows_ , she thought. _He knows I've made my decision._

"Not true," he replies slowly. "Prussia has established a cordon sanitaire, that's all. The cholera currently plaguing Poland left him no choice. More than 80 000 have died already, and we have our citizens in East Prussia to protect. Not allowing anyone to cross from Poland into Prussian territory is a drastic measure, granted, but unavoidable. But there have been no occupied Staroswos on the Polish side. No Prussian flags or soldiers on Polish soil."

She remembers a winter day, such as this one, the snow flakes kissing her face, and then Stanislaw whispering, _I love you, Sophie._

"Why not?" she asks Heinrich, and her voice is that of the Czarina, amused and invulnerable. "Why not take your share, if the Austrians have started grabbing already?"

Grigory hasn't realised what is going on, but Panin and Chernitchev seem to have an inkling, for they suddenly sit upright, and Chernitchev says: "Yes, why not take the, what's that province called, the Ermland? Everybody should get something. Would make that country of yours look less like an uppity patchwork, wouldn't it."

"Patchworks live from new bits of clothing," Heinrich returns, and his voice has her own detached amusement, for it is a jest, of course, solely a jest as far as anyone else is concerned. "The Ermland alone would hardly be worth the bother. West Prussia, on the other hand...."

It's a century old conundrum, ever since the Margraves of Brandenburg acquired the province of East Prussia, but not West Prussia, which meant a sizable part of Poland lay between them and that territory which gave their new kingdom its name. Catherine's father used to complain about how hard it was to defend a kingdom consisting of a lot of separate territories with no shared border. Two of the three Prussian kings who so far existed have loudly wondered whether it would not make sense to unite the two Prussias. But no more than that, because no Russian ruler would have allowed them to move their border that much further.

"Indeed," Catherine says. "Just as I cannot see the point of dividing Livonia between the Polish Commonwealth and Russia. It hardly makes geographical sense, and as Count Chernitchev so rightly observed: everybody should have a share."

By now, the Russians in her company have sobered up, including Grigory. He frowns. Panin, too, has narrowed his eyes. He has always fancied himself the guiding hand behind her throne, and regrets to this day she had not consented to becoming Regent for her son when deposing her husband. Her son, whose teacher Panin then was.

"But", Grigory says, "but you can't take provinces without war. Those Poles are annoying, but I thought we'd keep going east, Majesty. Keep at it with the Turks. Why not free Greece of them, too?"

"You can take provinces without war. If everyone concerned agrees on you doing it, and gets to do it as well, makes that the basis of a peace treaty, even. From which everyone profits", Heinrich says quietly, and now all eyes are on him.

"Not the Poles," Catherine says. She's made her decision, and she thinks it's a good one, but she wants him to be clear on what he's doing, her fellow conspirator. "Let me ask you something, old friend. What if I'd have allowed you to be made King of Poland instead? It was a possibility, after all."

Now he stares at her, and she realises what she has not known before - that he has never been told. It is a vulnerability she has not counted on. And this is the most cruel of games. So she cannot help herself. She has to exploit it.

"The Republicans and Branicki wanted you, not Poniatowski," she says. "I wanted a King I could rely so, so I might have been persuaded to change my candidate. But your brother said he would not permit it under any circumstances. I take it he also forbade anyone to as much as mention it to you."

"Quite," he replies, tonelessly.

"Well, given what a mess this country is, you're better off," Chernitchev comments, while Grigory looks ready to explode at the thought she might have considered another candidate than Stanislaw who still would not have been himself. It is then that she decides she will take another lover. He really needs a reminder that no one in this court is irreplaceable. No one, that is, except for herself.

"Gentlemen," Catherine says, "enough jesting. You may leave us. Prince Heinrich and I have more serious matters to discuss."

None of them looks happy, though Panin definitely makes an intrigued face, and Chernitchev gives the impression of bursting with the urge to tell the rest of the court, and thus the entire world, of what has just been said. As she had expected when raising the topic to begin with.

Once they all have left, she switches from French to German, which she has been careful not to use even before her husband died, always positioning herself as his opposite, the imported princess who truly wants to be Russian, where he's been German till the day he died, making no secret of his disdain for anyone not either from Holstein or Prussia. This, as much as anything else, has gotten him killed. But now she wants to make things just a bit harder for anyone listening through the door, and so she turns to the words from her childhood.

"If you were King of Poland now," she says, "would you still consider it a good thing for a sizable part of your country to be partioned between Austria, Prussia and Russia?"

Heinrich's French is like her own learned from Huguenot nurses and more a first language than a second. But his German has the Berlin accent the children of Prussian nobility pick up from kitchen maids and carriage drivers. She hasn't heard it for decades until now.

"Of course not. I would fight such an endeavour with all I have. But if you want to know whether the current King of Poland will be able to successfully resist the partitioning of his country, I can reassure you that he won't. Too many of his subjects see him as your stooge for them to rise on his behalf instead of against him. And he won't have any support from any other European nation, either. Neither the French nor the British would gain anything by risking war with Russia, Prussia and Austria at the same time for a country which isn't theirs and doesn't even provide them with valuable trade. Unless what you really want to know is whether the current King of Poland will ever forgive you. And there's nothing in me that qualifies me to have an opinion about forgiveness."

So he _has_ spotted a vulnerability in her, just as she has in him. It only remains to make it clear it does not affect her actions. If she had allowed love to rule, let alone the memory of love, she'd have been dead a hundred times over already.

"I'm not in the market for forgiveness," she says brusquely."I'm in the Empire business."

Heinrich nods. "And your Empire will grow without another war, while the one you are already in will be settled to your satisfaction," he says. "You're better off with Livonia than with Wallachia and Moldavia anyway. It makes more geographical sense, and you won't even need any more additional troops to garnison than those you already have there."

"You're awfully confident that the Austrians will get into bed with your brother and me to begin with," she retorts. "No matter how the young Emperor feels, in the end, it's still Maria Theresia who rules, and she has hated your brother now for thirty years. I also doubt that she has forgiven Russia for changing sides in the Seven Years War."

"Firstly, she's a monarch above all, and I have yet to meet one who can decline the prospect of more land without war, especially if the last war has still left wounds, and if the alternative is your rivals growing and enriching themselves without you doing the same. And secondly, I happen to know it is entirely possible to hate my brother while working with him anyway."

He says this last statement as calmly as the rest of it, but in German, he can't disguise a certain hoarseness. She looks into his eyes and finds a passion there that is as intense as any a man has ever shown for her. But then, hate is as encompassing as love in many ways.

She thinks about the stories she's heard. About the brother who is dead, Wilhelm, Heinrich's favourite sibling, at whose wedding they had danced. Wilhelm supposedly had botched a Prussian retreat in the war, and for this had been shamed and cashiered by Friedrich in public, only to die a year later, of a broken heart, people claim, which is medical nonsense, of course, but nonetheless, he had died, and Heinrich, as he's confirmed right now, is not one for forgiveness.

And yet. He fought for Friedrich till the end of the war. And if this scheme of his, this grand convoluted plot actually can be pulled off by all parties concerned, then he has [gained more territory for Prussia than Friedrich ever did](https://www.zum.de/whkmla/histatlas/germany/prfrederick.gif), without a single Prussian soldier having to die for it. It is a strange way to hate, this: to use all you have in the service of the one you hate, though in a way that makes it clear you just might be his equal and more.  
"Why don't you stay?" she asks impulsively.

"Your Majesty is most generous, but it has been months already, and...."

"No," she says, interrupting the polished reply before it can be finished, "I am not being generous. I mean it. Stay. Not just to negotiate the treaty between Russia, Prussia and Austria. Stay for good. Why not? If you return to Prussia, you will return to life in your brother's shadow, only being able to use your talents for as much as he allows, and honestly, given you had to trick him into permitting this mission, I doubt he'll give you another like it again. But if you enter my services, I promise you I will not waste what you can give. Not in war nor in peace. "

She means what she says. Even if one of her original suspicions should be true, and Heinrich asking for her invitation behind his brother's back has been a ruse cooked up between the brothers: he would be an incredible asset to gain. And she finds she enjoys the company of the man as much as she did the boy's, more, perhaps, than of any other man she has not desired. It's good to sharpen her wits against his, and they understand each other. He does not put her on a pedestal to fall from, nor does he judge her as a demon. And if he should come to turn against her, well, his way of hating his monarch apparently involves even better service.

"I think you would," he says slowly, getting up from his chair, only to kneel in front of hers. He takes both of her hands. "And to tell you the truth, I have considered asking you if you did not offer. Don't think I haven't wondered, I haven't dreamt of what it would be like. To be free of him. Maybe even fight against him, for as much as I hope this peace between the three powers we'll build on partitioning Poland will last for at least a generation, I know that there's always the risk it won't. And I'm afraid this is what it comes down to. Because it is not just him. It is Prussia. I cannot, I will not fight against the country which has given me life, and against its people. Not in war or in peace."

Something in her stirs. She can't decide whether she feels rejected, and thus angry with him, or relieved. For if he feels bound to a country more than to a person, then he resembles Stas more than she has assumed, and it might end in a similar way between them. She does not care for this prospect. Better for him to remain in Prussia, then. Her hands tighten around his.

"We all live in cages of our own making, Henri," she says, returning to French.

"That's true," he replies, and smiles at her. "But you've allowed me to escape mine for a while, and I don't believe I've thanked you for it yet. So, before I return to it: may I enquire how your most serene majesty feels about climbing these days? And just how safe are the rooftops of the Winter Palace?"

He can't mean what she thinks he means. "This is Russia in January, Henri," she protests. "We'd freeze our limbs off."

"Only if we stay up there too long. Besides, you know what they say about games against the odds."

She's sure, then, that whatever else is true, he is her friend, and always has been. And while she does not know what the future will hold any more than he does, she finds that right here, right now, she still wants to be his.

  
"They are the most fun to beat," Sophie replies, and still holding his hands clasped in hers. "And I do love to win."

**Author's Note:**

>  _Historical Footnotes_ : While this story by necessity simplifies the the lead up to the first Partition of Poland somewhat, the primary sources for its key events are: 
> 
> \- for the Catherine and Heinrich childhood friendship starting with their meeting when she was eight and he was eleven: Catherine's memoirs (" _On that occasion, my friendship with Prince Heinrich of Prussia began during playing with each other; at least I could not name an earlier occasion. We have agreed repeatedly that the origin of our friendship goes back to that first meeting._ ") Catherine also references the relationship - and their dancing at his brother's wedding - in her correspondance with her Hamburg friend Frau von Bielcke in 1766 (i.e. four years before Heinrich's journey to Russia). 
> 
> \- for Heinrich arranging an invitation from Catherine to Russia behind his brother's back: Catherine's correspondence with her envoy Prince Dimitry Golyzin (which only got published 130 years later, which is why the whole thing is presented as either Catherine's or Friedrich's idea in older sources), with the ongoing Heinrich and Friedrich correspondence making it equally clear Friedrich originally had licensed only the trip to Sweden and had not anticipated the one to Russia 
> 
> \- Heinrich mediating between Ulrike and Catherine and talking Ulrike out of her plans: Friedrich/Heinrich correspondance as well 
> 
> \- the "why shouldn't everyone get a share" conversation first openly suggesting the partitioning of Poland: letter from Heinrich to Friedrich on January 8th, 1771 
> 
> \- the romance betweeen Grand Duchess Catherine and Stanislaw Poniatowski: his memoirs, and in a different fashion also hers
> 
> \- Catherine's maternal uncle Georg Ludwig's behavior towards her and her suspicion her mother knew: Catherine's memoirs
> 
> \- Catherine's first and only in person meeting with Friedrich when she was fourteen: her memoirs, and a later letter of hers referencing the encounter to Friedrich
> 
> \- Heinrich as a candidate for the Polish throne only for his brother to forbid the Polish delegation as much as mentioning this to him, (which is why he only found out from Catherine in Russia): referenced i.a. in the diaries by Heinrich's life long friend Ernst Ahasverus von Lehndorff.
> 
> Terminology: strictly speaking, the term "West Prussia" was not used until after this part of Poland became Prussian territory; however, the term actually in use pre 1772, "Royal Prussia", would only have added confusion, since it did explicitly _not_ belong to the Kingdom of Prussia, which took its name from East Prussia. 
> 
> Heinrich outlived both his brother Friedrich, who died in 1786, and Catherine; by the time of her death (1796), relations between Prussia and Russia were somewhat hostile again, but Heinrich wrote to his youngest brother, Ferdinand, in the mixture of affection and pragmatism which had informed his relationship with her: _I am wearing (mourning) in memory of the friendship she's shown towards me, and of her genius. For losing it is a loss to the whole world. (...) She had supreme qualities. I can never forget her attention, her amiability and the power of her mind. What remains now is very small, compared to her. Of course, from a political point of view her death is a stroke of luck for us._


End file.
